After the Stalag Years
by Thorsten P. Ziegler
Summary: A sequel to the Bill Wilder film featuring William Holden, STALAG 17. This story takes place five years after the end of WWII and explains some of the things that happened since the escape of Sgt. J.J. Sefton and Lt. Dunbar from the POW camp Stalag 17.
1. Prologue

After the Stalag Years

After the Stalag Years

Men are at war with each other because each man is at war with himself. Francis Meehan

It's Cookie again, you haven't heard from me in a few years. This time around it's December 1950, the five year anniversary of the end of WWII, and the day of the Stalag 17, barrack 4, POW reunion. Everyone in the old gang was notified, well, not exactly everyone, not Sergeant J.J. Sefton. It isn't as if we, Sergeant Hoffman and myself that is, didn't consider it, Hoffy phoned me from his place all the way up in Vermont to ask me what I thought about the whole idea of having Sefton invited. I couldn't help but remember his last words to us the night he escaped, "If I ever run into any of you bums on a street corner, just let's pretend we've never met before". Who can blame the guy after what he went through those last few days. We didn't even know if Sefton was alive, so we just left it at that.

Schulz and his goons came down hard on us after the escape; the Colonel didn't take too kindly to the fact that he could no longer tell his kraut cronies that he was running the only camp where the POWs didn't make it 10 feet past the barbed wire fences. But even after the shake down the whole outfit was still intact, and most of the ones who had been unmarried now had wives and some even had kids. Duke had himself a wife and a kid and so did Hoffy. Sefton sure was wrong about Animal and Shapiro needing new faces to get themselves some good-looking dames, Animal found himself a nice curvy blonde, whose name somehow happened to be Betty, and Harry Shapiro got himself a Russian Kremlin of his own. Nothing made us happier than the sight of Joey with a girl in hand instead of an ocarina.

The whole get-together was at a big fancy hotel in New York, all set up for the yuletide festivities. There was a giant tree in the lobby, which put our Stalag tannenbaums to shame, decked out with decorations hanging from every branch. I can still remember the way the dog tags reflected the light off the branches of the scraggly trees in the camp the Christmas Eve before the escape, the day the Geneva man came all we could do was smile and nod because everything was just peachy, considering.

It was strange how after so many years we could recognize each other faster than you can say Kris Kringle. As soon as all us POWs saw each other entering the lobby, one after the other, the hugs and slaps on the back began and conversation started to flow on the spot.

"Hey Suzy this is the son-of-a-gun I was tellin' you about!"

"It's swell to see you again you lousy bug wit!"

"Ah, look at all you sack rats, you haven't changed a bit."

I even heard Bagradian doing some Jimmy Stewart and Gary Cooper impersonations nearby. After nearly an hour of standing around and getting the scoop on what everyone was up to I heard someone shout out, "Heya, it's Sefton". It was Animal's voice.


	2. Keeping Promises

You could hear Duke's neck crack from the sharp turn his head made in Animal's direction

You could hear Duke's neck crack from the sharp turn his head made in Animal's direction. Hoffy looked at me and raised an eyebrow, giving me a questioning glance. I didn't know anymore about Sefton's being there than the rest of the gang, how could I? I hadn't talked to Sefton since the day he'd hightailed it outta Stalag 17, and liked I'd said before, no one even knew if he was alive or not.

All the rowdy conversation that had been going on around me suddenly stopped. Everyone turned to look at the former sergeant and wrongly accused traitor.

Duke and Sefton in the same room looked like bad news to all of us. We all knew Duke wasn't sore at Sefton, not since we found out that Price was the informer, but Duke had been the first to accuse Sefton and when Sefton had left with Dunbar he'd made his feelings pretty clear. Duke didn't move a single muscle and Sefton hadn't moved anything but his eyes when he'd heard Animal's voice, and that alone was enough to cut us down. His blue eyes that had once been like the still waters of a peaceful lake, even when there was scheming behind them, suddenly looked as if they were made of ice chips. He looked so different to me that I didn't know how Animal or anyone else could have recognized him at a glance, even with his trademark cigar hanging from his lips. Animal had once told Dunbar that the only way he could have been acquainted with a guy like Sefton was if he'd had his house broken into, but now, now he was dressed in a dark suit that had to be tailored, the expensive looking material fit him like a glove. It was the kind of thing you would have expected him to wear while he'd been in 17, considering his trading activities, instead of the bomber jacket and worn out army regulation clothes. Sefton's golden brown hair was no longer a short military crew cut, it was wavy and slicked. It went beyond what his hair was like and what he was wearing, like the change I saw in his eyes Sefton's features seemed somehow hardened, and as I took in these changes a felt a shiver shoot through me.

Suddenly an angelic voice stopped the shiver in its tracks. "John?" it called out. I turned, I think we all turned around, the voice was so beautiful we just couldn't help but look in the direction it came from. The voice came from a dark-haired woman carrying a kid, no older than two, in her arms. The woman looked like a high class dame, not the kind of girl you'd think would take a liking to a guy like Sefton unless she was trying to give her parents a hard time. Sefton only turned his head slightly, to let the woman know he'd heard her, unlike his former brothers-in arms she at least seemed worthy of that much of his attention.

When he turned his head in the woman's direction I noticed a scar, it was hard not to. The scar began at his temple and curved halfway around the bottom of his left eye. There was another scar, a faint one that connected to the one around his eye that made it look like the number two. We all knew where the small faint scar had come from; we'd given it to him

The woman moved closer to Sefton, reaching out to place her hand on his arm.

"John, do you know these men?"

I could feel everyone tensing up as the soft voice with a Boston accent asked the question. We were all wondering the same thing, had the years changed Sefton enough for him to forgive us? If his reaction so far was anything to go by we didn't stand a chance.

Sefton's eyes went from frigid icebergs to the eyes of someone who was completely unfazed by what was going on around him, when he heard the question. Sefton took a long drag from his cigar and slowly blew the smoke upward before speaking.

"Never met 'em in my life," he said, in a voice that brought with it a flood of memories from the day he'd been beaten.

As those words left Sgt. Sefton's lips he made good on his promise. We were the bums and this classy New York City hotel was the street corner. The woman looked confused at Sefton's behavior. Why shouldn't she be confused, why would anyone have reacted the way Sefton had, even for a second, toward men who, according to him, were perfect strangers?


	3. Of the Boston Dunbars

Sefton and I had parted on good terms but I suddenly felt guilty and something in me must have hoped that his words hadn't included me, that he hadn't held my few moments of doubt against me, because for some reason I heard myself calling out his name

Sefton and I had parted on good terms but I suddenly felt guilty and something in me must have hoped that his words hadn't included me, that he hadn't held my few moments of doubt against me, because for some reason I heard myself calling out his name. Everyone held their breath; we were all nerves as we waited to see how Sefton would react.

"Cookie!"

I could feel a grin spreading across my face as he shouted my nickname, and my smile grew wider as I watched the dimples on his cheeks reappear after having temporarily forgotten the fact that he even had those dimpled cheeks. I walked toward him, past all the guys that were standing in front of me. The rest of the boys looked dumbstruck; they knew they deserved whatever Sefton dished out. You couldn't expect a warm reception from a guy that you had beat to pulp, wrongfully accused of being a stoolie, and stolen what he'd worked hard for.

"G-g-good to s-see you again Sefton." I hadn't stuttered in four years.

"Still haven't gotten rid of the stutter I see," he said while giving my shoulder a squeeze. "Cookie, may I present my wife Julie and that kid she's holding is Junior" he said as he turned to look at the women we had momentarily mistaken for an angel. "Julie this is Clarence H. Cook, formerly Sergeant Cook of the United States Army Air Force."

"P-pleasure to m-meet you Mrs. Sefton", I said as I extended my hand

"The pleasure is all mine."

John James Sefton Jr., who up until know had been quietly resting his head on his mother's shoulder, turned and gave me a toothy grin then decided that his mother's hair was more worthy of his attention and began to wrap his finger around one of her dark curls.

After the introductions and after leaving all my Stalag chums, Sefton led me to the hotel bar for a drink so we could catch up on what had happened since he'd left the prison camp.

I noticed that he kept me talking, asking me lots of questions, but never talking about himself, nothing about what he'd been up to since he'd left the prison camp. I knew the years couldn't have been too bad to him; he had a nice wife, a cute kid, and a really nice expensive-looking suit. I decided I wasn't going to try and wheedle anything out of him so I told him all about the girl I had in California and the job I'd gotten in '46 working in the crew for the picture "The Best Years of Our Lives", and how that job had turned into a career.

After Sefton's interrogation of me we sat quietly at the bar, he kept ordering drinks one after the other and I just fidgeted with the glass that had contained my one and only drink while we'd been there.

"Better than the Stalag swill we used to brew, don't you think Cookie?" Sefton asked as he downed another martini.

"Never touched the stuff," I answered. It was true, I never had. Not really sure why, maybe it was my upbringing, maybe I just didn't want my insides to melt, who knows.

"That's right, couldn't have our barman drunk on the job now, could we?"

"Nope." I said while suppressing a hiccough. If the state I was in after just one drink was an indicator of what it was like to be drunk then it was probably a good thing I never had our potato peel (and Red Cross string) brew. The guys could have easily passed off a single cigarette as three and J.J. wouldn't have been too pleased about loosing profits. "Sergeant, I think we should both go to bed." I don't know why I called him Sergeant, it just sort of slipped out and that was when he started to open up about what had happened after Stalag 17.

"That's Lieutenant to you Cookie," he paused for a moment, furrowing his brow. "Ex-Lieutenant. War's over ain't it?"

"Sure is. How'd you become a Lieutenant, Sefton?"

"Got promoted of course."

"But you'd have to have been in the Air Force to get promoted, you were still a sergeant when you left."

"I was dragged back. Boston blueblood, the noble soul, wanted back in. Too bad he didn't die, it would've been so much more heroic that way," he said bitterly, "his blood spilled on the battlefields of Europe." He paused for a moment, "but then I wouldn'tve been able to snag his sister, formerly Miss Julie Dunbar, of the Boston Dunbar's, from right under his nose."


End file.
